


A Few Things About Love

by brandnewsoul



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Accidental Marriage, F/M, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-14
Updated: 2013-05-25
Packaged: 2017-12-10 18:55:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/789112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brandnewsoul/pseuds/brandnewsoul
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Figuring out how to make it work, post drunken Vegas wedding. Or: Darcy and Steve, Year One.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote [Shake the Glitter Off Your Clothes](http://archiveofourown.org/works/461886) last summer on a whim. But once I finished, it was all, _okay, so they're giving marriage a shot... there's a story in that, right?_ Then I started trying to come up with scenarios in which that story could play out, and I was going to write everything all in one long short piece but decided against it. But I still loved the idea and wanted to write it, so here we are with a potential string of vignettes. 
> 
> Title comes from Justin Timberlake's "Suit and Tie".

A week after the last of her stuff gets moved into Steve's place, three weeks after waking up to find herself married to a glitter-covered, honest-to-God superhero, Darcy sits on the couch in the dark, waiting to hear from her husband.

It still feels weird to think about it: the idea that she has a _husband_. It's not like she never thought she'd get married, but this whole thing still feels too sudden and new to her. Never mind that _she_ was the one who suggested that they give it a shot. At the time, it seemed like something to try just for the hell of it. Besides, what sane straight woman _wouldn't_ want to see what being married to Captain America would be like, right?

Darcy now realizes that it's nerve-wracking as hell.

Steve and the others got called off about some incident in friggin' Alaska, and she hasn't heard anything from him in three days. No call, no text, no telegraphs or notes from honing pigeons. The mission has to be pretty serious if there's radio silence to that degree. And with each day of not hearing _anything_ , she's starting to worry that something's gone wrong in the worst possible way. Something so wrong that the higher-ups don't know about it…

Or they _do_ know and are trying to figure out the best way to tell _her_ about it.

She's so stressed that she called in sick earlier. She doesn't even remember what she said; for all she knows, she told the head of the department that she had Ebola. She spent the day actively seeking out distractions. The refrigerator's been cleaned, the laundry washed, her CD and DVD collections alphabetized. She binge-watched cartoons on Netflix, music videos on YouTube, played every absurdly catchy dance tune in her music library until the fear and paranoia seized her.

She's been still so long that when the phone does finally ring, she's startled when she shrieks and reaches for it on the coffee table. She fumbles before finally pressing the right button on the touch screen. "What?" she snaps, heart thrumming in her ears.

All he says is, "Darcy? Hi," and it feels like getting the wind knocked out of her. She bites the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing (or crying) at how _simple_ of a greeting it is.

"Hi. So, care to explain exactly what the fuck was going on that kept you from saying 'hi' earlier?"

She can hear the sound of the wind howling in the background as Steve lets out this soft laugh. "Yeah, that," he says. "No service, plus, once we did get it, we needed to… what was it, triangulate a satellite signal just to take down this thing. Personal contact…" He sighs, and Darcy can picture the look of agitation on his face. "Personal contact was seen as secondary to the mission, that sort of thing. It's still no excuse."

"What, are you kidding?" she says as lightly as she can manage. "Battling whatever it is—"

"Mad scientist with experimental mutant snow crabs," Steve says, then adding, "Which is probably the most _ridiculous_ —"

" _Mutant snow crabs,_ " Darcy repeats.

"Yes."

"Well, fighting snow crabs and making sure that they don't infest Canada and the Pacific Northwest is more important than being all, 'Hey, I'm freezing my red, white, and blue ass off here in the tundra, miss you,' and stuff. I understand."

The wind seems to blow harder, as if it wants to compensate for their stalled conversation. Darcy takes off her glasses and scrubs at her eyes. She's tired from all the waiting. "Glad to hear from you," she says in a soft voice.

"You too." Steve shouts that line out, as suddenly there's the rush of the wind and the hum of something mechanical in the background. "That's our ride. I'll—we'll talk later, okay?"

"Wait!" Darcy shouts.

"Huh?"

"Are you coming home soon?"

She thinks that she can hear Clint yelling something over the noise, all while Steve is completely inaudible. She tries again. "Steve! Are you coming home soon?"

"Yes!" he says over the din. "I'll be back—sorry, I'm losing the signal—"

The line goes dead, and her heart hammers in her chest. It could be that the signal is weak; could be that the mutant snow crabs have come back and need to be killed off again. Darcy glances at the recent calls list and finds that the number is unlisted.

Of course.

At some point, she turns the TV on and watches infomercials 'til her eyes water. At some point they become a blur and she swears that she sees Billy Mays shilling a Magic Bullet.

She wakes up to the sound and scent of coffee brewing. The sun is streaming through the windows, and as she sits up, she pushes aside her blanket and rubs her eyes.

He's in the kitchen, sitting at the table and thumbing through a newspaper as he chugs his coffee. It's such an _average_ scene, save for the fact that Darcy immediately notices the fading bruises on his neck and cheek. She stops herself before she gets close enough to touch him, and he looks over his shoulder. The skin around his left eye is kind of a mean grayish-yellow. If she wasn't so relieved, she'd be embarrassed by the fact that she finds it hot that he's come home slightly beat up.

"Hi," he says, sounding almost sheepish. "There's doughnuts by the refrigerator."

Nothing that she can think of sounds good. She wants to be angry or eloquent or sarcastic, but she _can't._ Her senses are kind of overloaded, what with Steve being back and in one piece (as if he'd return any other way, _right?_ ), and coffee and doughnuts. Could anyone blame her for being speechless for once?

So she leans down and plants a gentle kiss to his temple. It's all that she can manage for now, at least. Maybe once she's got caffeine and sugar in her, she'll be able to carry on a conversation with him.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Darcy fails the first rule of the internet, and runs into some fans.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the comments, everyone who commented! (And for the kudos, everyone who... kudosed. That's not a word, but let's pretend that it is.)

There had been a time when Darcy had thoroughly enjoyed any and all forms of celebrity gossip. It was her lone guilty pleasure. She refused to be ashamed of damn near anything, from the music on her iPod to the movies she liked or the clothes she wore, but being overzealous about the lives of the rich and famous was something that she preferred to keep under wraps. The gossip mag obsession had started to fade somewhat once she'd started working—too many things to do, not enough time to check her email for updates about the latest Disney star scandal.

And then this thing with Steve happened, and now she's the one who's the subject of "walking posts" on Oh No They Didn't.

So it was probably fitting that "Don't read that tabloid crap" was one of the first things that Jane said to Darcy post-wedding. (The first thing was, _You're seriously going to stay married and be Mrs. Captain America? You're like, twelve!_ That prompted Darcy to remind Jane that twelve year olds do _not_ assist people with their crazy physics-related plans for intergalactic travel, thank you very much.) "Seriously, Darce, they are _awful._ "

"You've always said that, Ms. 'I Used the Latest Issue of _In Touch_ as a Coaster,'" Darcy pointed out.

"That's because those magazines are garbage!" Jane shifted in her seat and reached for the steaming mug of coffee that sat before her. They were in Darcy's miniscule apartment, trying to make sense of everything that had gone down in the past week. "But this time I mean it. This is about you! I mean, the magazines are pretty bad, but the blogs—"

"Ja-ane," Darcy whined. "You are forgetting that I know—"

"I'm just telling you this because I care about you, and I don't want you to read it, okay?"

"Hey, you are forgetting that I spend _way_ too much time on the internet. And what's the first rule of the internet?"

Jane, having heard this mantra dozens of times before, rolled her eyes and said, "Don't read the comments."

Darcy had tried really, _really_ hard not to. The first two days after everything went down, she went on an internet fast that she broke only because she realized that she hadn't checked her mail in forever, and she _needed_ to know if she'd won an eBay auction. But after checking Gmail, the siren call proved to be too strong, and the next thing she knew, she was binge reading every mention of her on Google News, and then following link after link…

And strictly based on that totally irrational fevered search, Darcy has found that she is quite polarizing. She's gotten plenty of hate—like, seriously, did that one Senator _really_ have to go on some pathetic tangent about questionable choices from national role models and bring _her_ up? But for as much vitriol as she's apparently drawing from the public, she also seems to have some defenders online. She's flattered and a little bit freaked out that she's got something of a fan following on Tumblr.

It's still a hard for her to venture out, especially now that she's moved in with Steve in the Tower. It's like the moment she steps foot outside, swarms of paparazzi appear out of nowhere and start shouting at her, and because of this, she's been under unofficial house arrest.

When the opportunity arises (meaning: it's lunchtime and the paps seem to have scattered to check out what overpriced eatery the latest reality show darling is at), she throws on an oversized t-shirt and pulls a baseball cap low over her eyes so that she can venture outside for at least an hour without TMZ chasing her down.

She goes to Starbucks first, because her soul has been craving a strawberry crème frappachino. She stops by a Duane Reede, picks up a shopping basket, and starts dropping things into it at random: a pack of mechanical pencils, gummy bears, a copy of _GQ_ , things she's buying just for the sake of spending money. There's three other people ahead of her in the line, so she leafs through her magazine as she waits.

She hears the scuffle of sneakers behind her, and looks over her shoulder to see two teenage girls with an armful of magazines each. The one in the snapback cap is flipping through _Pop Star_ while her pink-haired friend is nose-deep in an issue of _People_. The guy at the front of the line is arguing with the cashier over a coupon for a toothbrush. Darcy crosses her arms and sighs. The girls behind her are giggling over something, and one of them says, "Do you think—" right when the cashier pages the manager.

"You've got to be fucking kidding me," she mutters.

"Excuse me?"

She turns. The pink-haired girl is openly gaping at her, while her friend is glancing down at a page in one of her magazines. _Shit,_ Darcy thinks, and she can't decide if she should book it right now or pretend that she hadn't heard them at all.

"Oh, ohmigod," gasps the pink-haired girl. "Oh my God. You're really her."

The girl in the cap looks up and lets out a sharp squeak and drops her stack of magazines.

"I _told_ you," Pinkie says to Hat Girl. "I didn't know that you wore glasses, though. Ohmigod. Can I have your autograph? I mean, if you want to give it out! I don't want to seem like one of _those_ people, but oh my _God_ , you're _married_ to—"

"Yeah, yeah," Darcy says. "Pipe down. You have a pen?"

Hat Girl fishes a ballpoint out of her purse and offers up the _People_ that she'd been leafing through minutes earlier. Darcy cringes at the spread, which contains school photos and Facebook pictures of her that _had_ to have been donated by evil, estranged friends and family members. She signs her name across the headline ("MEET MS. AMERICA!") and gives the magazine back. She signs the cover of _Us Weekly_ for the other girl, and as Darcy hands it back to her, Pinkie leans in and asks, "Is his butt really as nice in person as it is on TV?"

"Claire!" Hat Girl shrieks.

"It's better," Darcy says as she drops her basket on the counter. As soon as she finishes paying for her stuff, she sprints for the nearest subway.

When she gets back to her part of town, the swarms of photographers are gone. She figures that someone else must have finally done something to upstage her—what, she can't fathom, but she's grateful for them. She gets back to the apartment and dumps her pitiful haul on the couch and forgets about it.

Until later, when Steve picks the bag up and looks in. "These yours?" he asks, holding up the bag of gummy bears.

"Oh, yeah," Darcy says. "Forgot about those. I was too freaked out after I got them to…" She shrugs. "I… just went out for a little. Started feeling claustrophobic. Signed some magazines for these two girls at the drug store." She makes a face. "It is so weird to have people ask you to write stuff on your own face. Do you ever get used to it?"

"Magazines I can deal with," Steve says. "Allegedly anatomically correct—"

Try as she might, Darcy can't hold in the laugh. The thought of anyone asking Steve to sign something that could be a proxy for his junk is too much.

"Yeah," he continues, "that… you don't really get used to."


End file.
